Volume 2 contains an introduction by Joanne Harris, whose novels are published in over 40 countries and have won many awards.
Michael Morpurgo has contributed a story. Michael is the author of over one hundred books, and the winner of many literary prizes. He was awarded an OBE in 2006 for services to literature.
Read an extract and view issue contents below.
Extract:
No Trumpets Needed – Michael Morpurgo
I am a cameraman. I work freelance, working on my own. It’s how I like it. I was on the West Bank a few weeks ago, my first job in the bitter cauldron of confrontation that is the Middle East. Of course I had seen on television, like most of us, the anguish of the grieving, the burnt out buses, the ritual humiliation at checkpoints, the tanks in the streets, the stone throwing crowds, the olive groves and the hill top settlements, children playing in open sewers in the refugee camps ̶ and now, the wall. I knew the place in images, I was there to make more of them, I suppose. But I had a more personal reason for being there too. I saw it on television, watched in disbelief as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. It was the most hopeful, most momentous event of my young life. Now another wall had been built, and I wanted to find out about the lives of the people who lived close to it ̶ on both sides. I began my travels on the Palestinian side.
Table of Contents:
Introduction – Joanne Harris v
The Death of the Aardvark – Robin Sidwell 1
A Day Out – Eleanor Knight 17
I’m Reviewing a Play at the Albany And I Was Wondering if You’d Like to Come Along – Luke Kennard 29
The Do-Gooders – Lauri Kubuitsile 37
No Trumpets Needed – Michael Morpurgo 43
Mrs Eastcott – Jane Feaver 49
A Clean Life in the North – Jean Rafferty 59
Sans Everything – Nel Boswood 67
Don’t thank me, thank the moon’s gravitational pull + other short tales – David Gaffney 73
The Night of Nights, 1948 – Seán Burke 79
The Kiss – Martin Sorrell 95
What You Know – Andrew Caink 103
Joyriders – Sarah Oswald 111
North Cold – Tania Hershman 125
Miss Vandermeyer and the Star Baby – Emma Seaman 131
Contributors 147